Seagate Introduces Flexible External Hard Drives

Seagate today introduced the next evolution of the company's FreeAgent external hard drives—its new GoFlex storage solutions. This new family of external drives and accessories introduces a new level of flexibility to traditional USB 2.0 storage. The FreeAgent GoFlex storage family includes easy, plug-and-play portable and desktop drives, with an array of interchangeable cables and desktop adapters that allow each drive to adapt to the interface or device being used. GoFlex hard disk drives are also specially designed to provide interoperability between operating systems in order to work with both Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X computers.

“GoFlex interface cables are about providing the speed, performance and connectivity people need to support their interaction with their digital content. The explosive growth of video capture and multimedia collecting is expanding personal digital libraries to terabytes worth of content within the home,” said Dave Mosley, executive vice president, Sales, Marketing and Product Line Management at Seagate. “These trends are driving demand for high-capacity, high-performance storage. The GoFlex family of storage products meets this need by delivering simple, USB 2.0 storage and backup devices, with the flexibility to adapt as interface technology advances by using the various GoFlex cables and accessories to access content stored on the same drive.”

Recent survey results by the Yankee Group indicate that more than half of people planning to purchase a new hard drive consider the interface connection an important factor in their selection. GoFlex drives address this concern by providing a flexible, plug-and-play way to adapt to the most popular available interfaces or devices. The seamless GoFlex cable system enables the GoFlex and GoFlex Pro ultra-portable USB 2.0 drives to be upgraded to USB 3.0, eSATA or FireWire 800 connections simply by switching out the cable adapter.

Additionally, specially-designed GoFlex upgrade cables provide even more applications of how each drive can be used. For example, the GoFlex Upgrade cable - Auto Backup transforms the drive into acontinuous full-system backup, giving consumers the peace of mind that their files and system settings are backed up, while leaving the remaining capacity for basic drag-and-drop file transfer.

Within the GoFlex family, Seagate has created a special ecosystem wherein people experience easy backup and enhanced protection of all their data—the same way they would expect a traditional hard drive to perform—only now their interaction with that content is not wholly dependent on the drive. In addition to several cable options, people can pair a GoFlex or GoFlex Pro ultra-portable drive with a GoFlex TV HD media player or the GoFlex Net media sharing device to enhance their experience of the drive’s content.

Using the GoFlex TV HD media player consumers can easily enjoy their personal digital media library on their television screen by inserting a GoFlex ultra-portable drive or GoFlex Pro ultra-portable drive directly into the media dock, or connecting another storage device, digital or Flip camera to the two additional USB ports on the back of the device. Using the intuitive remote, owners of GoFlex TV HD media players can view movies, photos, and music from the comfort of their couch in 1080p high-definition and surround sound. Connect your GoFlex TV HD media player to the internet using the Ethernet or optional Wi-Fi adapter and stream digital content from a home network or popular online service providers such as Netflix, YouTube, MediaFly, Picasa and more.

The GoFlex Net media sharing device transforms a GoFlex ultra-portable drive, GoFlex Pro ultra-portable drive, or any USB mass storage, into a media sharing device, allowing consumers to enjoy their digital content outside their home using a PC, iPad, iPod Touch, Android, iPhone, BlackBerry or any other internet-connected computer. The GoFlex Net media sharing device also integrates with social media websites, such as Facebook and Twitter, and publishes RSS feeds allowing people to keep friends and family updated GoFlex media sharing device owners can also stream content to other devices on a home network, including the GoFlex TV HD media player, to enjoy movies, photos and music on their TV.

For the first time, Seagate will include an NTFS driver for Mac OS X on all GoFlex portable and desktop offerings, enabling storage and access of files from both Windows and Mac computers. The NTFS driver is simply installed once on your Mac computer, and allows access and storage of files on a Windows-formatted drive.

With capacities ranging from 320GB to 2TB, FreeAgent GoFlex ultra-portable and desktop drives group high-capacity, adaptability and ease-of-use with all the backup and protection people have come to expect from Seagate.